Apex by Ramez Naam
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I loved Nexus and I though Crux was good, but I really struggled with this, the third in the trilogy. I felt it took a long time to get going,and in the end it played out 400 pages of plot across 650 pages of book.
FDR by Jean Edward Smith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is an extraordinary book: not only a work of immense scholarship (with 150+ pages of footnotes and 35 pages of bibliography), it is also the immensely readable tale of one of the most remarkable and influential figures of the 20th century. I was gripped with every page, learning a huge amount not only about FDR himself, but also the period of American history across the two world wars, as well as gaining something of an insight into how American politics actually works. Everything from the impact and true depth of the Depression to gripping accounts of nomination convenient floor fights, to behind the scenes views of his meetings with Churchill and Stalin. Outstanding!
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I was so looking forward to this, because, well, Neal Stephenson! And I loved the first half, being technology and space and clever people doing hard things to handle an epic crisis, until suddenly politics intrudes, and nearly ruins the whole thing. I mean I know this stuff exists, and does in practice rule the world (and every large firm I’ve ever worked in), but I wasn’t looking for that out of this book. Plus, I’m not sure NS is the right author to write it convincingly. Not enough layers to it, I felt. Anyway, then we skip forward along the timeline, and I liked that last third a bit more again, but this time I felt again NS was trying to write from an interesting sociological PoV, but didn’t quite convince me with the characters. So I liked it – a lot in many parts – but from NS, I was a little sad that it wasn’t AWESOME.
Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking by Daniel C. Dennett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Is this a good book? I struggled mightily with this question for more or less the whole book.
Yes, it’s extremely well written, with Daniel Dennett’s usual clarity of expression and vivid explanatory style. It’s stuffed with great examples and interesting concepts – indeed, that’s the point of the whole book, to show us a bunch of thinking tools, and to offer some worked examples of them in practice.
On the other hand, I spent much of the book frustrated with it. With the pacing, perhaps, required by demonstrating a whole bunch of tools before getting to the meat of the matter. With ultimately the fairly light treatment of many interesting topics – as each was really only used as a worked example of the intuition pumps being enumerated, rather than as a primary subject. With the (for me) fairly well-trodden ground being covered.
So in the end it depends what you’re after. If you want a survey of the field, and a bunch of entertaining glimpses, and an introduction to a broad range of tools for thinking about this field and many others, then this is a good book. That’s what it sets out to be, and by those lights it does it well. If you are after a substantial meal exploring a few topics in depth, rather than a tasting menu covering many items (tasty and well presented though they may be), then you may feel somewhat like I did.
In the end, I give it four stars: by the lights of what it sets out to do, it achieves it well, and the journey – even for me – was on the whole an enjoyable one.
The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance by Josh Waitzkin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I really wanted to like this book. It’s a blend of an autobiography and a text on how to think about learning, viewed through the story arc of Josh Waitkzkin’s life. He has clearly lead an extraordinary life, both as a Chess master and as a Tai Chi Chuan champion, and I found the autobiography elements perhaps the more interesting, although they are often surprising un-introspective for someone who clearly is smarter than almost everyone on the planet in some domains, and who spends a lot of time thinking about and analysing and optimising the processes of his own mind.
Ultimately though this is a book about the process of learning, and that’s where I felt a little let down. If you’ve ever heard of “flow”, that state achieved by elite athletes and even us mundanes in particular circumstances, that’s what he’s talking about. He never uses the word flow itself (or not that I spotted), instead approaching it through a series of steps (“slowing down time”, “searching for the zone”, “building your trigger”). These are relayed through personal anecdotes, many of which were certainly interesting to read about. He does add some additional material outside this – I particularly liked the concept of “investing in loss”, and that’s a thought I will definitely carry forward.
In the end, though, I didn’t find the book either uniquely insightful or particularly elegantly written, although of course I acknowledge others may do so. They may write their own reviews, but for me, this approach ultimately didn’t add anything, and by not referring to the existing literature on flow, of which he surely can’t be ignorant, he appears to be rebuilding a path across land that others have already extensively surveyed.
Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts by Annie Duke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Sound techniques for making – on average – better decisions
A book both entertaining and practical, based as it is on lessons learned from thousands of hours of decision making under pressure, as Annie Duke played high-stakes poker. At heart, it’s about how we distinguish skill from luck in decisions, how we can improve the skill part of the balance,while understanding that luck will always play a part.
The Little Book of Lykke: The Danish Search for the World’s Happiest People by Meik Wiking
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Charming book that simultaneously reviews the main factors that determine a nation’s average happiness and also a number of stories and ideas about how we might be happier in our own lives. What I liked about these examples was they were both simple and practical – and the context from the stories illustrating them show just how practical they are. Written with a nice light and personal touch, too – I liked that.
The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World by Dalai Lama XIV
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a great book – simultaneously a charming, uplifting, and practical book. It is based around the week-long visit of Desmond Tutu to the Dalai Lama on the occasion of the latter’s 80th birthday.
It is charming for the tale of the friendship of these two world leaders (and Nobel Laureates!), with the way they demonstrate the virtues of humility and the lovely teasing manner they have with each other. It’s uplifting for the stories they tell of others who have inspired them – from schoolchildren to prisoners on death row. And it’s ultimately practical, for not only is the story of their week together structured carefully around a path that can potentially bring us each more joy, but there is also a very useful set of guides to meditation/prayer at the end, again built around the essential steps on this same path.
It’s a book I’ll come back to again and again, I think, for the words they speak and the comfort to be found in their profound empathy with the world.
Anticancer: A New Way of Life by David Servan-Schreiber
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Clear and compelling view of how you might make changes in the way you live your life to minimise your risk of cancer. Written by a research MD and cancer sufferer, who clearly knows exactly what he’s talking about, it has become the most heavily bookmarked book I’ve ever read, and has changed my diet (which was already fairly healthy) quite significantly.
Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I read this while in hospital for a week – good thing I had a lot of time on my hands as it weighs in at nearly 1100 pages! An excellent narrative, weaving a complex narrative across several worlds, tens of years, and 50+ characters. Some great ideas, very well written, ultimately felt like it needed a little editing down in the first half, but once the various plot lines were established it gathered momentum and kept moving along very well.